Across Torn Tides (From Tormented Tides series Book 3), page 27
“Poseidon cursed you once. What do you think he’ll do to you if you kill her?” I spat.
“The gods of old are long gone. Without her, I’ll be the last supreme being of the seas…as it could have been all along if she had chosen me instead of that useless mortal.” Bastian snarled, sharpened teeth showing through the black water continually trickling down his face. “You may have the mark of the sun to shield you, but you’re not the one I’m after.” He struck the wall beside us with a burst of shadow and water from his hand, sending it crumbling to the floor and shaking the remaining walls.
“He’ll collapse the whole fort.” I watched the stony residue and pebbles dropping down on us from the ceiling.
“I don’t think he’s concerned about that.” Milo uttered. Together we watched dumbfounded and completely baffled as he crashed through the wall and the shadows around him slithered across the floor, carrying him toward his destination—Serena and Bellamy.
48
Written In Stone
Bellamy
Icouldn’t think of a time when I’d run as fast as I did then, chasing after Serena—except maybe the night my father killed her and I ran to the pier, trying to save her…and failed.
“Serena!” I screamed, my voice echoing down the dark halls. There were passages snaking all throughout, leading to pitch black tunnels of nothing. I could barely see, as the torch I took from the wall was near to dying. “Serena!”
I called out her name again, stumbling my way through blindly, turning at every entrance and trying to decide which one I should follow. I finally chose a path and wandered into the dark, chasing an end I didn’t even know existed and praying to a God I didn’t believe in to help me find her. But the passageways around me kept multiplying, and each time I chose one, more would appear. I spun, surrounded by corridors that taunted me and spun alongside me, my vision blurring at the sight of the dark halls surrounding me. I no longer knew which way was left or right, north or south.
I wasn’t one to panic, but in that moment, I felt my heart speeding up in a way that made my chest tighten. And the loud boom in the distance didn’t do much to settle that feeling when I heard the sound of stone crumbling and the feeling of an earthquake beneath my feet. The chamber had become some strange illusion of tunnels, a maze that I didn’t remember my way out of. Whatever Bastian was doing to my head, I wanted him out.
Find her, that’s right. Lead me right to her. He laughed in the recesses of my mind, taunting me with the fact that the closer I got to her, so did he. Poor Bellamy. The more you try to help her, the more you hurt her. It’s always been that way. In this lifetime and the last. Yet you just can’t stay away.
“Shut up!” I screamed into the emptiness. “Shut up and go to hell!”
He didn’t shut up. He kept on, making my head ache. I leaned against the wall, agonizing over every word, reaching up to my neck and digging in my fingernails in attempt to claw away his mark on my collarbone. The skin tore, burning at my desperate scratches, but it wasn’t enough. I reached for a knife in my pocket and raised it to my neck.
Suddenly a hand caught my arm. “What the hell are you doing, boy?” I glanced up, my vision settling. There were no longer hundreds of tunnels. Just the two passages I was trying to choose between. And the person holding my arm was Russell.
“Nothing,” I panted, trying to catch my breath in an attempt to look less insane. “Where’s Serena?”
The look in his eyes told me he knew. “She found the Crown.”
“She did?” I asked, a smile starting to form. “She’s got her power back?”
Russell looked away, a heaviness overtaking his appearance. “Get out of this corner and come and see for yourself.”
I followed him down one of the passages, a glowing in the distance as we approached.
“The West tunnel,” I muttered, noting that the altar room was stark North of where I stood. “Damn. From North to West.” I connected Serena’s clue once again, baffled at how they’d been there all along, as Russell led me to the end of the passageway. It was a chamber, somehow inexplicably lit, showcasing even more of the thousands of Bastian’s collected items lining the walls like a hidden treasure cove. And there in the center of the room was Serena, kneeling in front of a broken heart shaped opening in the floor from the stone that she’d pulled up, staring at the Crown in her hands with tears in her eyes.
“You got it!” I shouted, rushing to her side. “Wait, what’s wrong?” I noticed her tears weren’t from joy, but sorrow.
“I got it,” Her voice squeaked, placing the Crown on her head. “But it didn’t work. I’m still the same.”
I didn’t know what I expected would happen when she got that crown back. Maybe she would put it on her head and light would shoot out every which way, or maybe she would levitate and shine like the sun. I had no idea. But nothing even close to that was happening. And she made it clear that wasn’t how it was supposed to be.
“What? No! Maybe it’s a fake. Bastian probably switched the real one or—’’
“I assure you, it’s the real one.” Bastian’s voice interrupted me. He stepped into the room, a strange calm about him, though he was soaked completely with his dark water. Something seemed…different, more sinister…about him. He looked relieved as he watched Serena holding the Crown. He spoke so calmly it made me nervous. “So you see…you cannot stop this.”
Katrina and Milo appeared behind him, but they didn’t approach. They stood, just as mesmerized by the scene as the rest of us, waiting to see a goddess re-crowned. Bastian kept his distance, but he kept talking. “What now, Atargatis?”
“Very well,” she said softly. “It’s written in stone. How could I think I could defy that?”
“What’s written in stone? What do you mean?” I took her hand, pleading for her to make sense.
“The altar is painted with pictures of my legend. The first, a weeping woman by her dead lover. The second, she’s walking into the sea. The third, she emerges with a tail. And the fourth is meant to be the last. Her end. My end. I’m destined for this ending.”
“The last picture is faded! I saw the altar. You don’t know the ending!” Katrina screamed from where she stood.
“She’s right!” I screamed. “You’re going to let some damn pictures tell you what’s supposed to happen to you?” I shuddered as I heard another boom in the distance, wondering what was happening, knowing it was just a matter of time before Bastian got tired of playing cat and mouse with us and made his next move.
“It’s my destiny.”
“No, Serena. No. You’re my destiny! So what does that mean? We just give up?”
“What does it take to restore a goddess?” Bastian snickered. “Apparently more than it took to ruin her. Now come with me. Back to the altar, dear.”
Something about the way Bastian said the words triggered a clue in my brain. And I carefully sorted through the thoughts in my head, almost afraid to think them because I knew he would be listening. But I couldn’t help it. The thought came and I couldn’t get it to leave. But I couldn’t help but think maybe there was something more about that altar than we knew.
Stop trying. You’ll only make this hurt worse.
With eyes clenched shut, I shook his voice away. I wanted to run, run far away from the hold he had on me. It wasn’t fair that he could just appear any time and invade my thoughts. And all these years—had he been in my head the whole time? It made me sick that I couldn’t escape it.
I’ll always know. I’ll always follow you. And when you fail once again to do what you failed to do before, I’ll be chasing you, ready to remind you. No one has ever kept me out.
I fought like hell to get him out, closing my eyes to help me blockade my mind. But as he spoke into my thoughts, something he said made me finally believe him. He was right. I could never keep him out. No one ever had. So what happened if I stopped trying? What would happen if I just let him in? What if I played his game right back? What the hell did I have to lose?
Go right ahead, mate. Make yourself fucking comfortable. As I spoke back, I could almost feel the hesitation and utter surprise in Bastian’s awkward response.
You’re going to just open yourself up to me like that? How very bold of you.
Might as well surrender. It seems the only logical option, wouldn’t you agree?
When there was no answer from Bastian, I knew that I had him. I was now in his head, as he was in mine, and if he insisted we share a highway between our thoughts, I was going to find out what his were. I was done running.
When I opened my eyes, I saw Bastian, looming with a clenched jaw and anger flashing in his gaze. Serena stood in the center of the collector’s lair, facing a grim version of Bastian that I’d never before seen until now. He was taller than humanly possible, and black writhing shadows sprouted from all around him. He controlled some blackened water that burned to the touch, and he sent waves of it forward to wash us all back, separating us all from the one he wanted.
Serena screamed. I grunted with frustration, trying to break through the wall of black water he’d entrapped us in. Though it looked cold, it boiled like molten lava to the touch. Burn marks ate their way through my clothing and onto my arms from trying to break through the barrier. I screamed alongside a desperate Russell, who rammed the wall alongside me as Bastian dragged Serena away in his inky, shadowy clutches.
As Bastian swept her away and dragged her back toward the chamber with the stone altar, I stopped fighting the unbreakable water wall. I couldn’t catch him. And I certainly couldn’t stop him like this. Desperate and out of solutions, I looked inward again, reaching into my mind for an answer—or rather, reaching into his.
Why don’t you just kill her right here? Why the need to keep dragging her back? Are you not strong enough? If I could figure out his secret—why he seemed to need her in that chamber so badly to kill her—maybe it would lead to an idea.
He fought me hard, closing off his thoughts as best he could without losing me entirely. I could feel it. His pride wouldn’t let him give up the hold he had on me. Even if it meant I had access to him, however fleeting.
His thoughts flashed before me as I fought the mental battle to stay in his head and see what I could. I could only manage to see broken, fragmented, and fuzzy blurs of thoughts, but they were something. As he carried Serena, he was thinking about how he’d kill her. With a dagger he planned to stab through her…no, he planned to cut off her tail..to give…to give it back…to the gods?
What was given here must also be taken.
He had to kill her on the altar. He couldn’t do it otherwise. Some kind of magical god rule, I’m sure. But wait…
On the throne of Atargatis must be her blood…To kill her once and for good.
Throne. Throne.
I reached for Bastian’s memories. I knew I wasn’t strong enough to be choosy. But I think the fact that we were now sharing a mind-link made him panic. I saw flashes, glimpses of what could have been bits of Bastian’s life. I saw faces of the poor unfortunate souls he tricked into his deals. I saw pirate captains and kings. I saw glittering horizons and stormy seas. I saw love and loss, hate and war. And there I caught a glimpse—not even a second—of my life through his eyes. He watched us with envy. Serena and I, and the life we built millennia past.
She was mortal, but still just as beautiful. An ordinary girl with ordinary dreams. In a village built from stones and mud, at the earliest dawning of civilization. And there I was with her, in a life I didn’t remember—a man clearly used to hard work and toil, rugged and dirt-covered, greeting her with a kiss as I entered our humble house. All this Bastian had watched, longing to be in my place.
And then I saw what he did to her. What he did to us.
He drove a dagger into my chest while I slept, and left the bloody knife in her hands. When she woke next to my body, holding the blade, she thought she’d lost her mind, and ran to the cliff by her village where she threw herself to the sea.
Centuries later he found her again, no longer a woman, but a goddess, a sea queen, rivaling his own power with her curse-turned-blessing. And he lured her to him, promising a power even she didn’t hold—bringing me back in exchange for her crown. In a ritual under the full moon’s light, he took her crown, sentencing her to a mortal rebirth, forever searching for the man she traded her power to bring back.
I shook away the visions of Bastian’s memories. My legs threatened to buckle as I processed what I’d seen and learned in a matter of moments. What had passed as a lifetime in my mind was only a few seconds here in the real world. I’d hung on to every image. And I remembered the stone altar where Bastian ripped the Crown from Serena’s head in exchange for restoring my life. It wasn’t an altar. It was a throne. And thrones were used for coronations. We had to crown Serena on her throne. And I had to die to do it.
49
To Crown A Queen
Bellamy
If you crown her, you break my deal with her, and I take back what I’m owed—your life.
Bastian spoke to me even now, and I could sense the wicked smile on his disgusting face from his words alone. My blood turned to ice. I didn’t mind dying. I’d already done it once. But losing a lifetime with Serena again…
No. I owed her this. I failed her before. Not again. I wouldn’t do this for anyone but her. For her I’d rip out my own barely beating heart. And if I was the cost of her power, so be it. At least my death would be worth something this time.
I turned to my friends, all trapped here with me. “Help me get out of here. I know what to do to get Serena’s power back. But I have to be the one to do it. Do you understand?”
As Katrina started to object, I repeated myself before she could finish. “Do you bloody understand?” I choked, my words coming out harsher than I meant them to.
“What are you planning, mate?” Milo stepped forward, a concerned look about him.
I stared at him. I wasn’t going to share any of what I’d learned. I’d keep that all with me till the grave. No one else needed to be bothered with all that.
“You just need to know that I have to get to that throne room.”
Katrina and Milo hesitated. I knew they cared, but right then I didn’t want them to care. I wanted them to shut up and get me out of here. So I couldn’t believe I’m admitting to this, but I was incredibly grateful when Russell stepped in.
“Just get him out.” Russell blurted. “Katrina, you can do it. It’s water, isn’t it? Control it!”
Katrina sent a sideways glance my way. “It’s dark water. It’s different. I’ve never—’’
“Try!” I screamed, my voice raking against the air.
Hesitating, she held out her hands, tears very clearly forming in her eyes. She groaned, sending forth her strongest effort to tame the black water swirling around us. As she fought to control it, her hands shook, but the wall of dark water remained untouched.
“Wait.” Milo put his hands over hers. “Don’t sirens draw their power from the moon? Let’s try something.”
She looked at him through heavy, shining eyes that had lost all hope as he guided her hand to the sun star marking on his arm. “Use me as a shield for your power.”
Russell and I watched them, tense and hopeful, and terrified all at the same time. The clock was ticking. For all I knew Bastian had already killed her. I had to tell myself to breathe.
A golden light shone from Milo, culminating at the marking on his arm. Katrina held onto him, combining their power so that a golden light began to surround her. She reached forward and touched the dark water, Milo still at her side. Where her fingers met the water, it separated, a golden rim slicing through it as she created a small opening.
“The sun and moon must face the same darkness,” Milo whispered beneath his breath. I would’ve asked him what he meant, but I was too busy rushing towards the growing hole in the water wall.
I went to escape, but stopped at the realization that Bastian would know my plan. He would know that I intended to kill myself for Serena and he wouldn’t let me do it. Someone else would have to do it, at a time when he least expected.
My thoughts rushed like the water swirling around us. I turned to Milo and spoke low but urgent enough. “When I get in there…listen…when Serena is crowned, you have to kill me.”
“What?” Milo’s eyes flashed.
I gripped his shoulders. “I’m asking you this because it’s the only way. My life for her power, that was the deal she made. I have to save her. You have to kill me. Do you understand? Kill me.”
“I…I can’t do what you’re asking, Bellamy.” Milo turned his head.
“Then I’m not asking. And I’m the captain, remember?” I breathed, my heart pounding.
“Bellamy, I—’’
“Don’t give me that golden boy shit right now. I already died once for Katrina. You think I won’t do it again that much more for Serena?”
“That was different,” Milo argued. “You didn’t have a choice. We were cursed to hell. We were going to die anyway.”
“Well my life’s hell without her.” I spat, meeting Milo’s gaze with my own hardened stare. “I thought you of all people would understand. I thought you of all people would have my back on this. You said you’d have my back…on whatever came next.”
He was silent, and I could tell I wasn’t changing his mind. I couldn’t waste any more time trying to convince him.
“To fucking hell with you, then, Milo. Don’t forget to take your knife out of my back when I leave.” I shoved him out of my way and ran to the water opening as Milo called for Katrina to close it.
She tried, but she wasn’t fast enough. I leapt through, the edges of the water still managing to splash and singe my skin, but I didn’t stop to notice. As fast as my feet would carry me, I ran to the Crown lying on the ground and scooped it up in my arms. Then I set off down those dark, empty tunnels, my fate literally in my own hands as I ran to crown my queen.
